In the first few letters the scammer will say what a good woman she is and how hard life is in Russia.

Her monthly salary is only a few hundred dollars, all Russian men are drunks and maybe her family died in a tragic accident or they are ill and in need of surgery.

That’s particularly true if they’ve been through difficult circumstances, such as divorce, losing a job, serious illness and other major losses, says Doug Shadel, a fraud researcher and director of AARP Washington.

Whatever else may result from the hack attack, it sent consumers' perceptions about e Harmony into the cellar, as determined by a Consumer Affairs sentiment analysis of about 140,000 social media postings over the last year.e Harmony sentiment seems to have profited from e Harmony's downfall, showing a distinct uptick over the last few weeks, as determined by a Consumer Affairs sentiment analysis of about 110,000 social media postings.

For thousands of people each year, the search for love online ends not just with a broken heart, but an empty bank account.

So-called romance scams — in which fraudsters smother victims with professions of love then plead for large “loans” to cover invented emergencies — appear to be on the rise, according to federal law enforcement and fraud experts.

Romance scams cost nearly 5,900 victims more than .7 million last year, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

And state and federal agencies have shut down several large romance scams in recent months, including a case in which two South Africans and a Canadian were extradited to the U. on charges of bilking hundreds of Americans of millions of dollars through romance scams and other financial fraud schemes.

usually involves this scheme: the scammers upload fake attractive photos, in most cases of white people.